Bailey v. State
Bailey v. State
Opinion of the Court
Bailey was convicted in the criminal court of Atlanta of carrying a pistol concealed. He sued out a certiorari in the superior court of Fulton county, which was overruled. There are six assignments of error in the petition for certiorari. The first is that the verrlict of the jury is contrary to law, contrary to the evidence, decidedly and strongly against the greater weight of the
In the second assignment of error it is alleged that the court intimated an opinion that the defendant had a pistol at the time in question; and it was argued that the ruling in Jenkins v. State, 3 Ga. App. 646 (58 S. E. 1063), is direqtly in point and requires a reversal. So far from the trial judge intimating'the opinion that the defendant had a pistol, and that the only question was whether or not he had it concealed, the charge in the record appears to be to the contrary. The court told the jury explicitly that “the defendant sets up the plea, not that he had the pistol openly and exposed to view, but that he did not have it at all.”
The third exception is that the evidence required a charge on the law of circumstantial evidence. The evidence introduced by the State was all direct. The witnesses swore that the defendant had a pistol, and that for a portion of the time it was so concealed that they could not see it. The testimony of the defendant was to the effect that he had no pistol. In such a case, as we held in Bivins v. State, 5 Ga. App. 434 (63 S. E. 523), the judge should not have charged upon the subject of circumstantial evidence. The fourth and fifth exceptions to the charge of the court are eliminated by the answer of the trial judge. The sixth is not sufficiently specific to poi7it out any error. Judgment affirmed.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.